Digital marketing is evolving at a rapid rate. As each year passes, the importance of having a properly structured digital marketing strategy is becoming more and more obvious. Smart Insights carried out a massive market research operation and blended it with other research from the best market research sources and the result was the following infographic.

It’s broken down into 3 sections; an overview of global consumer usage; an overview of benchmarks across customer life-cycle followed by research on the most effective techniques for managing digital marketing – according to industry peers.

Key Takeaways

  • Search optimisation is now the second largest online marketing channel.
  • Half of those asked said they had no defined digital marketing strategy.
  • Social media content is considered the best way to encourage interaction with consumers.

This research shows what many predicted. More people are using the internet than ever before and this trend will continue to grow. The use of mobile cell phones to search the internet is still growing and is now not far behind PC use as the prominent device of choice. This data provides some incredible insights into the average user profile and should be used when developing your 2015 digital marketing strategy. Amazingly, the top 100 websites in the world are actually slow adopters to ensuring their user experience for mobile users is acceptable with only 12% of them taking the plunge.

Interestingly for eCommerce stores, the data shows that iPads have the highest add-to-cart rates among devices, boasting almost a 9% add-to-cart rate. If you check your own Google Analytics dashboard and see that you have a high proportion of visits from iPad users then you would be wise to ensure that you maximise the return by ensuring you optimise the visitor experience for them.

2015 Predictions

There’s clear data to also suggest that the majority of people working in SEO believe that the company they work for provide insufficient resource to really maximise search optimisation. I’m predicting this year will see more businesses take digital marketing seriously than ever before. I’m certainly seeing an increase in businesses contacting me seeking a consultant and most people I speak to in the industry are very busy. This demand could be the catalyst for bringing through a new generation of talented digital marketers and more businesses prospering from the potential of digital marketing.